The present disclosure relates generally to handling calls, and more particularly to handling an incoming call from a calling party to a called party.
Nuisance calls are a significant problem for users of communication systems. For example, unsolicited calls attempting to sell a product or service are common and can be frustrating to receive.
Existing communication devices (such as smartphones) have modes or settings (e.g. a “Do Not Disturb” mode) that enable a user to filter incoming calls based on whether the number (e.g. telephone number or identification number) associated with the calling party (i.e. caller) is found in the user's address book or contact list or from a sub-set of “favorite” contacts. In this way, incoming calls that are not from known contacts are automatically blocked or diverted directly to a message service, whereas calls from known contacts are treated conventionally by the device. However, such an approach relies on the user having stored all relevant/known numbers in their contact lists in advance, which may not be practical.